Different Standards Apply: Indie Life & ROW80

It's hump day, and my first time posting as part of Indie Life.

What is Indie Life?
How: Sign up on the Linky at the bottom of this page
When: Post on the second Wednesday of the month (starting 1/9/2013)
What: Write anything indie related: something that will inspire or help a fellow indie; something that celebrates a release or a milestone; something that talks about the ups and downs, joys and heartaches of Being Indie.
Grab: The banner to include in your posts!

First, I am so proud to be an indie author. There are so many advantages to independent publishing: control, speed, quality, and community to name just a few.

People's perceptions of indie publishing have greatly improved in the last few years, especially with some big indie names making it to the New York Times bestseller lists. 

Still, I find many readers hold indie books to a higher standard. For instance, if an indie book has a few grammatical or punctuation errors, reviewers will often take them to task for poor editing. But, I find a few mistakes in most traditionally published books and reviewers rarely make note of them.

Lesson: Have your book professionally edited. 

Indie book covers are expected to have a wow factor these days, and at the very least should look professional. Yet, I find more and more traditionally published books are low-key--think the Beautiful Creatures series, the Hunger Games series, and the Twilight series before those.

Lesson: Do some research on your genre and book covers and take the time to produce a quality, and eye-catching, cover.

These are just the first two examples that popped into my brain. As indies, we have to put out a high quality product o build reader confidence. Since we don't have a publishing house behind us, we need to be behind each other... constantly building readers' trust in the indie industry.

One of the best parts of being an indie is the amazing writing community out there. Build your network and support other indies. You should never feel alone. Again, the more we do to support each other, the more we build faith in indie authors and their products.

And if you need further proof that indies rock, please check out the Indie-Credible event going on all month long. Visit my post for dates and author visits. Oh, and to see indies actually rocking out, check out the Indie-Credible video here.

Check out other Indie Life posts here.

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Wednesdays are also A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) check-in days.

My goal for the rest of the round is to stick to a writing first schedule. I hope to have this so firmly in place that I can set a daily word count goal for Round 4 which starts October 7. I'm also focusing on research. Finally caught up with my sponsor duties. Planning to visit and comment on at least 15 blogs before the next check-in and to visit twice that many Indie Life blogs from today.

Beautiful Co-Writing: Authors Working Together

One of the first questions most people ask me about Depression Cookies is how it was writing a book with my mom. What I find more intriguing is the idea of writing a book with another author, not related. 

Mom and I have a lifetime (my lifetime anyway) of figuring out our relationship and knowing what does and doesn't work for us. Plus, she's the one who fostered in me a love of reading and writing.

I have found many authors I've clicked with over the years. Could I write a book with them? I'm not sure. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I think it could be an interesting journey, to say the least.

So when I discovered Beautiful Creatures was written by two friends, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, I was intrigued. Even more so when I read this from the back cover of the book: "Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl came up with the concept for Beautiful Creatures, their debut novel, over lunch."

Note: I think my writer friends and I need to have lunch WAY more often.

Then, in the Acknowledgments section, it mentioned that they wrote the rough draft (the book comes in at 563 pages) in three months. Wow! Three months and co-authored.

In an interview on the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, found here, the authors addressed writing together. 

An excerpt:

Q: As co-authors of The Caster Chronicles, can you tell us what it is like to write with another person? Is there a team process involved?

A: Kami: Our writing process is unique to say the least, and often makes other authors cringe when we describe it. We discuss the plot at length and create an outline together. Then we each work on separate chapters. When we finish, we trade, and hack away at each other’s writing--deleting, adding, and changing. We pass the same chapters back so many times that most sentences have a few words of Margaret’s and a few of mine.

Mom and I traded chapters, so we each had our own voice. I can't imagine sending chapters back and forth and each having pieces of the story, even pieces of a sentence.

Can you imagine writing a novel this way?

My daughter, soon 13, read Beautiful Creatures over Christmas. When we found out there would be a movie, I promised her I would read it. I am 100 pages away from finishing, and we are seeing it tonight. 

So far, I really love it. Look for a review next week on Mom in Love with Fiction (of the book and movie). Although I'm sure I'll mention it on this blog as well.

Two initial thoughts...

Cover: I'm not in love with it. It just seems they could have done a bit more. Too understated for my tastes. Thoughts?

Praise: "Give this to fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight or HBO's True Blood series." SLJ -- They could do better for their huge back cover quote. Actually they did, just lower down on the back cover and smaller. "A hauntingly delicious dark fantasy," Cassandra Clare AND "A lush Southern gothic," Holly Black. Both quotes more accurately represent the novel, so it's a shame one of them wasn't featured. Plus, there isn't a vampire in this novel, so why evoke Twilight?

And for fun, the trailer...

Life Has a Funny Way: ROW80 Update

Life has a funny way of getting me back on track.

My way of saying Happy Valentine's
Day tomorrow!

Since I was a teenager, nothing motivated me like a looming due date. Often I did my best work under pressure. Two weeks to deadline was never as motivating as twenty-four hours. 

The hardest thing about writing/ editing is the "artificial" deadlines, especially with my own work. I would do better with a traditional publisher from the pure aspect of having someone breathing down my neck with a deadline. It's sad, but it's true.

I set deadlines, but they are in my head. Too easily, I let other things with actual deadlines take precedence.

So Life handed me a real deadline.

I'm holding off on making an official announcement of a big change in my life (and let me just go on record to say: no more kids). This big change forces my hand. I really need to have my NaNo book, Chasing Memories, done and ready to be published before this event takes place. That gives me four months. FOUR months!

I also need to finish the Depression Cookies follow-up in the same time. Maybe this is just what I needed to overcome a couple of months of funk. Here we go...

Do you work better with time or under pressure?

And now, my Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) Update

WRITING
My goal: Spend an hour a day writing/planning the Depression Cookies follow-up.
My progress: One chapter down, one more to write (by Friday) and then off to Mom for her response.

My goal: Deep edits and "filling holes" work on Chasing Memories (my NaNo project).
My progress: Prologue & Chapter One will be sent to the hopeful-editor on Friday. 

BLOGGING
My goal: Post here on Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Now adding: start writing some A to Z posts so April is not so overwhelming.
My progress: Monday and Wednesday done. Hoping to write Friday's post tomorrow and two A to Z posts by Friday as well.

READING
My goal: Read two books per week. Now adding: Finish Beautiful Creatures by Friday. I have a date with my oldest daughter to go see it, and I promised her I'd read the book first (since she loved it). 
My progress: So far this week, I finished three books and three reviews for Mom in Love with Fiction.

And thanks to inspiration from my ROW80-friend, Julie Glover... my newest goal: keep the weekends for family (except for a small 8am-noon window on Saturday for catching up).